The Case for Social Righteousness

Adoption by the Presbyterian Church⁴
The Great Ends of the Church, as they appear in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Book of Order, were shaped amid the same cultural currents Charles Sheldon navigated at the turn of the twentieth century:

the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind;
the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God;
the maintenance of divine worship;?the preservation of the truth;
the promotion of social righteousness; and
the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.

While the precise inspiration and authorship of the statement has apparently been lost,⁵ we know it was first adopted in 1910 by one of the PC(USA)’s predecessor denominations, the United Presbyterian Church of North America (UPCNA).⁶ Worthy of note, and another clue to understanding the character of the relationship between church and society in that time: this acceptance took place just two years after the Federal Council of Churches in the United States adopted the Social Creed of the Churches in 1908 (Appendix A).

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In short, the UPCNA was theologically conservative and socially progressive, upholding rigorous standards for personal morality and for the church’s leading involvement in the public work of remedying social concerns.
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The Great Ends of the Church came to be in the current Book of Order (see the new Form of Government) through two successive mergers of Presbyterian denominations culminating in the creation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 1983.⁷ Attempting to trace the story of the Great Ends’ adoption, Jack B. Rogers looks at the character of still earlier ancestors of Presbyterianism in America, the UPCNA’s precursor denominations. Rogers says these denominations were made up of Scottish Presbyterian settlers who valued Scripture and the Westminster Confession of Faith. Rogers offers an interesting description of these early promoters of social righteousness:

We think of [them] as a conservative component of our heritage. It is true that they practiced closed communion. They retained the Scottish free church practice of public covenanting to make their position known on moral issues. They were for the exclusive singing of Psalms in worship, without instrumental accompaniment. And they refused church membership to members of secret societies that required the taking of oaths.⁸

While they were conservative in relation to some church practices, Rogers insists that the UPCNA and its predecessors were surprisingly progressive in other ways. For example, the Associate Synod in 1811 declared the holding of slaves a moral evil, calling upon church members to free their slaves. The other predecessor denomination of the UPCNA—the Associate Reformed Church—declared in 1853 that all communing members could vote for pastors. This included women, who had been previously denied such voting privileges.

Referencing the work of William F. Keesecker (elected moderator of the UPCNA in 1975), Rogers suggests that the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms were the seeds of the Great Ends, which the UPCNA adopted without controversy as part of the revision of the church’s Book of Government and Directory for Worship. Rogers writes, “The truths contained therein and their emphases were apparently characteristic of this Christian community.”⁹ He concludes,

The United Presbyterian Church broadened and deepened those earlier definitions [from their predecessors] of the purpose of the church. In the context of its commitment to both the truth of God and forbearance in love, it developed a concept of the church that balanced conviction and civility. It included a balance of biblical emphases on evangelism and nurture, worship and truth, social action and the manifestation of holiness.¹⁰

Thus, the UPCNA seems to have been a Christian community that valued both personal and public morality.

After studying the 1910 Minutes of the Fifty-Second General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, Laura Elly Hudson reports on what seems to serve as evidence for the church’s concern for social righteousness:¹¹

• The “Report on Reform” notes that “the Decalogue is still in force and God has founded thereon His three-fold institutions of family, Church and State.”¹² Recommendations on temperance and on the keeping of the Sabbath were offered. The suggestion was made that the church ought to encourage public legislation to strengthen Sabbath observance.

• The minutes reveal that the UPCNA was involved in both foreign and home missions. The church was also invested in what it called “Freedmen’s Missions,” educating and working with African Americans in many ways. One committee report expresses a protest against persecution of Jewish Russian immigrants, though it also intones that the need to evangelize the Jews is dire if the spread of Judaism is to be contained.¹³

• A quote from the “Report on State of Religion” seems indicative of the understanding of the word righteousness within the denomination: “That the religious life in the denomination is vigorous is further evidenced by the activity of our membership in the reform movements which make for the ‘righteousness that exalteth a nation,’ and which operate for the betterment of social and industrial conditions.”¹⁴

• An example of the work for the “betterment of social conditions” comes from the “Report on Present Industrial Conditions.” It suggests that in employment conditions there was a widespread antagonism between the laboring classes and their employers and that “present industrial conditions open up such a great field for Christian effort in securing for the laborer a more equitable share in the reward of industry; safer and more sanitary conditions of employment; the protection of women and children from the hard conditions of industrial life; the making clear to the employer the Christian obligations of sympathy and brotherhood… [and the] securing for both the blessings of Sabbath rest.”¹⁵

These observations reflect the social and moral concerns of the era in which the Great Ends were written, helping us understand something of how the unknown authors of these ends understood the promotion of social righteousness. In short, the UPCNA was theologically conservative and socially progressive, upholding rigorous standards for personal morality and for the church’s leading involvement in the public work of remedying social concerns.¹⁶

An informative and lively article by Gene TeSelle of the Witherspoon Society describes the history of the Social Creed’s development and compares the conditions in which it was written with the conditions of our time.¹⁷ This article was precipitated by the PC(USA)’s adoption of A Social Creed for the 21st Century, written by the National Council of Churches in 2008, the one-hundredth anniversary of the first social creed.¹⁸ One of TeSelle’s insights affirms the very purpose of our ensuing journey: “General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. responded to [the early twentieth- century] ‘social awakening’ several times, adopting rewritten versions of the Social Creed and, in typical Presbyterian fashion, adding biblical and theological backing.”¹⁹

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